Who does he need to contact?

November 16th, 2011, 10:35 AM

My husband graduated from AIT October 24th and is now back home. (yay!) He went to RSP for the last time at the beginning of the month and was given a phone number to contact his unit to find out when the next drill will be..... that was almost 3 weeks ago and no one has called him back. He has left voicemails with the readiness advisor and the 2 other people on the readiness advisors voicemail. Both of us have tried to find his unit on the web site for Atterbury and it is no where to be found. He has no idea when his drill is for next month... and that is a problem for many reasons, one of which is a vacation we have planned for the first week of December (3rd -11).

He is going to call the main switchboard at Atterbury today and see if he can get a hold of anyone that way. I figured I would ask you guys to see if you have any other ideas.

Oh, and driving down there is the last possible option. It would require him to take a day off his brand new job with out a guarantee of someone being there to help him

Keep calling around. Have you tried his recruiter? Document your calls (time, number, who belongs to that number.) You'll want this because in case he misses drill, the army will put full blame on him. At least this way, you'll have documentation on how poorly the Guard in your area operates and fails to return calls.

Comment

His recruiter is no longer..... he went from SGT Flakey to LT Flakey and is lord knows where. My husband and I did most of the work anyway.. hence the Flakey name. We have our cell phone records documenting every call to each number, so we can prove he has tried, extensively to contact someone.

Am I surprised? Nope. Am I dissapointed? Yes.

Comment

I will say this, most units will be drilling within the first two weekends in December because of the holidays. I think almost every December drill I've been to over the last 8 years was held in the first week of December. Just an FYI since you have a vacation planned that spans both the first and second weekends of December.

I will say this, most units will be drilling within the first two weekends in December because of the holidays. I think almost every December drill I've been to over the last 8 years was held in the first week of December. Just an FYI since you have a vacation planned that spans both the first and second weekends of December.

Good point. Also the December drill is typically shorter and doesn't involve a lot of training in my experience. Sometimes a Christmas....I mean...."Holiday" party is held.

Comment

We are hoping he wouild be able to make contact at the gold phase RSP or soon after and let them know so he could make it up either later in December or Janruary.. we arent sure how it all works and we thought sooner the better. But we dont even know when the first drill is at this point. He contacted the operator at Atterbury and they transferred him to another number and he left a voivemail. Hopefully this one will call back.

You mentioned driving down there. So does that mean you know where his drill is located? Also call the state's STARC (state area command) and they usually have AGR personnel in the S1 that should be able to assist. Personally, since first impressions are important, your husband should talk to his supervisor about taking a day to resolve the issue. How many miles away? Tell your soldier we said hi and not to be shy to post on here. We welcome it.

Again shocking because in the 80s when I joined, I was taken to the unit and given important numbers before going to basic. Cannot believe the system has gotten worse.

Comment

He will be at Camp Atterbury... which is massive and several hours away. If it comes down to it he will go (with me in tow just for the fact the drive is beautiful... if you ever get to southern Indiana I highly reccomend going to Brown County State Park) but we wanted to exhost all possibilities becasue gas is expendsive and he just started his job and its been 3 weeks with out a pay check from him and Im not enough of a sugar momma to support everything.

He asked me to post because I have internet access during the day and he doesnt, and any new ideas I could text him.

You mentioned driving down there. So does that mean you know where his drill is located? Also call the state's STARC (state area command) and they usually have AGR personnel in the S1 that should be able to assist. Personally, since first impressions are important, your husband should talk to his supervisor about taking a day to resolve the issue. How many miles away? Tell your soldier we said hi and not to be shy to post on here. We welcome it.

Again shocking because in the 80s when I joined, I was taken to the unit and given important numbers before going to basic. Cannot believe the system has gotten worse.

You'd think with all the technology in place...the Guard would be more organized and responsive. It isn't always the case. Especially with regard to returning phone calls. Sure enough, half the unit will call you 1 hour after first formation wondering where you are. But no one will call you days or weeks ahead to tell you when to be there. The ball often gets dropped with regard to new soldiers. Anyone in your state not directly associated with you? Forget it, don't even expect a callback with a tip on where to look. Unless you outrank them of course.

Comment

IM guessing the readiness coordinator is only there on drill weekends? That is just my own thought though.. I dont know. I would think they would st least check messages once a week. That then that would make sense. There was supposed to be someone from his unit at his last RSP but they said that it isnt unusual for no one to be there. Since RSP and where he will drill are a few hours away I am not surprised they didnt take him to meet his unit.

Comment

Update: My husband finally got someone to call him back..... yes we will be gone for the December drill (but we already figured we would) He ended up calling the operator and said he needed to speak to a live person, left a voice mail and actually got a call back. He explained the situation and is awating a call back (hopefully today) about a make up drill. So we shall see where this adventure takes us.

Comment

Update numero 2:
Sill no return call. My husband gave the switchboard the name of the person he talked to last time and they do not have anyone listed. Great. So we are back at square one. We have tried finding anything online about his unit and it is like they do not exist. He is going to blow up the phones again this week in hopes that someone, somewhere will answer. This is getting ridiculous.

Comment

I'm guessing the unit has changed offices and no longer has those numbers, stuff like that happens all the time. If your husband has a name he could look them up in the AKO white pages to get an email address at least for them.